


bury this hard

by resistate



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Angst, Cheating, F/M, Happy Friendship Ending, POV Second Person, Softness, Tessa Virtue's Walk of Fame Dress, Unhappy Relationship Ending, Walk of Fame, almosts, mentions of other relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-11
Updated: 2018-12-11
Packaged: 2019-09-16 13:20:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16954818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/resistate/pseuds/resistate
Summary: You'd promised Scott he could fuck you the next time you wore this dress.





	bury this hard

//

December 1, 2018

You take a final look in the mirror before you need to slip on your coat and head to the red carpet. This is your day to celebrate all you’ve achieved together, you and Scott, and so you only catalogue the good you can see.

Eyes that look as green and gorgeous as you’ve been told they are. Hair that looks both sophisticated and refreshingly simple. A body that looks as strong and capable as it is every time you and Scott take the ice. A body that looks as gentle and pliant as it must do every time you embrace family and friends, grateful for their simple presence in your life.

And then there’s your dress. You almost can’t believe your dress. You’ve felt almost pretty in almost all of your costumes, but this is different. Better. You feel beautiful. It feels real.

The silk is delicate and green and flows like it wants to know every part of you: your fears and your failures; your wishes and your wants. The first time you wore it you tried to smooth the skirt but it persisted in floating about you like you were caught and held steady in a strong wind, like the dress was putting up wings at the same time it was putting down roots. It felt like it was made for you, like when you slipped it over your shoulders and gave a final tug at the sash it whispered against your skin that it was home.

You know it sounds fanciful, but it’s that kind of a dress. It makes you look like you’ve set yourself alight from within, like all of the goodness you know is in your heart is travelling through your veins, rising to the surface of your skin, making you look as radiant as you feel.

It’s your favourite dress in the world and you’ve been saving it for a special occasion. Of course you were going to wear it today.

Your phone buzzes. Scott’s downstairs. You reach for your clutch, throw your coat over one arm, and leave.

//

In the elevator, you comb your hand through the fur of your pale pink coat and have the most fleeting of second thoughts. Scott’s always loved you in green. He’d come along to the photoshoot the only other time you’d worn your dress, had shared in your joy at getting to take it home with you.

You’d told him in the break before the sit-down interview, giddy with the generosity of the designer and the magazine and with your love for how the dress made you feel. They wanted you in something more casual for the next shoot, to show your versatility and how down-to-earth you were despite appearances. Getting changed wasn’t going to take that long, so Scott had taken you to an empty meeting room and backed you against the door, too impatient to wait. You remember your hand fumbling blindly for the lock while Scott held you by your waist and leaned in, breath hot on your neck. This was in the spring, when you were caught up in Stars on Ice and couldn’t keep your hands off each other. Before he was even inside you he’d made you promise he could do this again the next time you wore the dress. You hadn’t had any reason then not to laugh and agree. You’d lifted his shirt up over his head and gone right on kissing him. You had time before the interview and all the time in the world after that.

He’d torn the dress by accident in his haste to get closer; you remember hearing something rip at the time and being too caught up in the moment to care. It turned out one of the panels on the skirt had torn at the seam, so you took it in to be re-sewn: an easy fix. You thanked your lucky stars all over again that you’d gotten to keep the dress and that it had been damaged after the shoot, not before.

It's been a whirlwind of a year, and nine months is a long time. A lifetime. Perhaps he won’t remember.

//

You walk the red carpet; you sign autographs; you’re right there next to Scott to unveil your star. You sign that too, and speak, and speak, and speak some more. You’ve prepared for this, you both have, and it goes so well. You are so, so proud of Scott, of all he’s achieved.

There’s a moment onstage when you move to touch your palm to Scott’s and he grabs hold of your hand instead, and you hold on right back.

//

Then it’s just the two of you, in a deserted corridor, trying to get a moment to yourselves before you need to go back and belong to everyone.

You used to sometimes feel like you were alone when it was just you and Scott. Like he was such an extension of you that there was nothing you couldn’t do or be in his presence. Now Scott stands too close and traces the V of your dress from shoulder to shoulder. You let him. The tips of his fingers are warm on your sternum and gentle against the curve of your breasts. Your breath catches in your throat, only for a moment; and Scott moves close enough to bury his face in the join of your shoulder and neck; and you let him do this, too.

He mumbles something against your throat; you don’t know what. His voice is low and hoarse and you’re finding it increasingly difficult to focus on anything beyond the impression of his mouth on your skin. You hear your name, you think, and something about how beautiful you are.

It’s the first time he’s said anything, but today hasn’t been about that. It’s been about celebrating what you’ve been able to achieve, together. Until right now it hasn’t been about anything else.

You could tell he remembered the moment he saw you. You knew when the smile dropped off his face like it was never there, when he didn’t take your coat from you until you placed it in his hands, when he’d stayed standing behind you a beat too long, like he didn’t know what should happen next.

Scott’s beautiful, too. You’ve always loved him in a tux. You don’t say this; instead, you run your fingers through his hair, gently, and lean into him. You still know how much of your weight he can bear in any given moment.

Scott pulls back far enough for your eyes to meet, and you can tell exactly what he’s thinking. You know from the way the lines of his body curve toward you, the way his gaze flicks between your eyes and your mouth, the way his pupils grow larger and darker by the second.

You’ve been reading Scott like a book you know by heart for years, but he opens his mouth and breaks the bubble anyway.

‘Tess. About—about that promise.’

He’s tried for casual but he’s missed by a country mile. His tone is a clash of humility and confidence, arrogance and doubt. It’s pure Scott. He’s not asking a question, not exactly, but neither is he making a demand. He’s testing the waters, feeling out how far down you’re willing to follow.

His hands are buried in the silk at your hips and you don’t want him to let go, not yet. You bite down hard on all the promises Scott had kept and then broken this past year.

You take his hand.

//

Scott waits until you’re inside the washroom with the door locked behind you before kissing you like he’s a man buried alive and you’re there with a shovel to save him, if only he can let you know in time. You hold his face between your palms and kiss him back, keep hold of him by his lapels when you pull apart to take in air; work your fingertips under his shirt so you can feel his skin flush against your yours.

You want to touch him everywhere at once. You palm him through his boxers, your hand sliding over silk and pulling a low, desperate sound from deep in his throat. It hits you suddenly that you had thought you would never get to hear him like this again, that you will never—

 

—you feel Scott’s fingers on your jaw, tipping your head so your eyes meet.

‘It’s fine. Scott, I’m fine.’

You find then that your palm has been resting, uselessly, on Scott’s chest, and you slide it down below his waistband; and Scott manages, between moans, to kiss every last centimetre of the skin stretching across your collarbones; and you get caught up in each other again.

He has someone now, someone who’s not you, but this doesn’t have anything do with her. You have a twenty-one year history of putting your partnership above all things. This is between you and Scott.

He’s managed to slip the top of your dress past your shoulders and down your arms, exposing your breasts. His hands are all over you, restless and urgent, searching for skin and coming up against silk. You push him harder then you mean to when he gets impatient with your dress; he has to catch himself on the edge of the sink to keep from falling. You don’t look at him when you say, ‘Scott, just—let me, okay.’

You untangle yourself from your dress as quickly as you can, aware suddenly that time is falling away faster and faster; aware that at some point soon one or both of you will begin to be missed. You look around for somewhere to hang your dress and realise, belatedly, that there isn’t anywhere. Scott scrambles out of his jacket and places it on the floor, inside out. He kicks his pants off his ankles and away and is about take off his shirt when you stop him with a hand on his wrist. His smile arrives and is gone so quickly you could have imagined it. It used to be a joke between you, the sacrifices you would make to keep him warm.

You fold your dress and place it on top of Scott’s jacket. It unfurls as soon as you step away from it, becoming a sprawling verdant lawn, an oasis at the beginning of a Toronto winter.

Scott is playing with the cuffs of his dress shirt, a decades-old tell that makes your chest ache, but then he glances up, fingers stilling at the sight of you.

‘Come here before you get cold,’ he says, and you step into the circle of his arms.

‘Tess,’ he says, and then, when you press yourself against him, ‘ _Tessa_.’

The way he says your name, hushed and almost reverent, doesn’t make you feel the usual things: that you’ve misstepped, that you’re going to be trouble. It makes you feel known.

He walks you back into the wall, one hand dropping to rest for a moment on your flat, flat stomach. Then he’s lifting you up and holding you steady, digging into your hips with enough force that you know he’ll leave fingertip bruises. You have to remind yourself more than once to be as careful with him as you can be. Leaving marks is not something you’re prepared to do to his happiness.

It’s hard and fast and messy after that, and over far too quickly.

You undo the buttons on Scott’s shirt while you’re catching your breath; stand on your tiptoes and tuck yourself into him, heartbeat to heartbeat. After a moment, he puts his arms around you. When you finally pull away, he lets you go. You make a promise to yourself, then, to remember this. You pick up his pants and underwear, shake them out. He takes them from you wordlessly.

You let Scott help you with your dress. His hands fumble against the fastening and once he’s figured it out he doesn’t pull away anywhere near as soon as he should. When you turn to face him he opens his mouth but you cut him short with a quick kiss. Perfunctory words about how beautiful you look today are waste of his time and yours. And anyway, the light in here doesn’t flatter either of you. It’s too unrelenting: it makes your dress fall against you instead of float; makes the smooth panels of green silk far too bright; the hollows where the skirt clings to your skin too dark.

Scott’s ready and as clean as a canvas, all traces of you gone. You apply lipstick with a steady hand and try not to think of fanciful things. Such as: your dress is nothing at all like one of those strange, singular slips that blooms, by rote, only once every hundred years. Such as—

 

—Scott leans against the door, not looking at you. You twist the cap back on your lipstick, place it carefully in its pocket inside your clutch.

You turn to face him. ‘You can go,’ you say. ‘You don’t have to wait for me.’

And you don’t mean anything by it, only that he can go back to the after party, but he flinches like you’ve slapped him.

You didn’t mean anything by it, but you don’t apologise. Instead you set to work on your hair; try to make it look presentable. You try, but it’s not fucking working; it’s a mess from where Scott pulled at it so he could pull himself further inside you, like that was something that was even fucking possible. You rest both hands on the edge of the sink, take a deep breath and draw on every resource you’ve ever had to draw on to avoid crying in public.

Scott moves to stand at your back. He rests his hands on your shoulders and runs his thumbs along your neck, along either side of your spine; out, and then back in, tracing the wings of muscle again and again.

It’s good, but it’s too much.

Your eyes catch in the mirror and after a long moment Scott removes his hands. You remove the clasp in your hair and Scott sets to work untangling knots.

You know that if he’d just leave, you could let go. You’d reigned yourself in during your speeches but there’s no denying this is an emotional day. You could let the inevitable just happen; you could take a couple of moments for yourself, and then it would be over and you could move on.

Your hair looks now like it did earlier; it falls down your back in a smooth, gentle wave. Scott’s fingers, still combing, are gentle.

‘This is your day, Tess,’ he says, so quietly that you read his lips in the mirror more than you hear his voice. ‘I don’t want to see you cry because of—’

He stops, and you don’t rescue him. His courage doesn’t fail him, in the end.

‘—because of me. Because of the choices I made. That I make.’

You want to deny that that’s what this is about. You want to tell him to go, so he doesn't have to look.

You don’t free any of the things clawing at your throat, fanciful or not, because this is his day too, and you love him. He’s your dearest friend, your dearest person. The last thing you want is to see him unhappy because of you.

Imagine both of you wanting the same thing at the same time.

Your ouroboros hair clasp is digging into your palm and you uncurl your fingers and extract it; place it carefully on the edge of the sink. You sweep up a handful of hair; twist it once, then twice; fasten the clasp. You turn to face Scott.

‘I’ll go first,’ you say, and Scott grasps your hands in silent gratitude.

//

You’ve done this countless times this past year, in hotels and arenas stretching across half the country. You leave, close the door behind you, check that the coast is clear. Then you rap your knuckles lightly, twice, and Scott slips out and reaches for you, and you have to stop yourself from slipping your hand into his on instinct. Instead you knock your shoulders together. He glances sidelong at you but doesn’t say anything. When you’re almost back to everyone else he slides one arm around your waist, pulls you into a quick sideways hug. You rest your palms flat against the skirt of your dress and remind yourself that your friendship is a good friendship. This day is a good day.

You walk into the room, into the party, side by side.

//

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Title from 'Kansas' by Vienna Teng.
> 
> I want nothing but happiness for real-life Tessa Virtue and real-life Scott Moir so I have no explanation for what happened here. 
> 
> Come yell with me on Twitter about soft ice dance GOAT bffs who (are in) love (with) each other: @/mfparaph


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